Smoke and Mirrors
by Adred Lightfoot
Summary: Dramatic post HBP fic in 7 chapters. Severus, Narcissa and Draco struggle to keep abreast of events over which they feel they have no control. CHAPTER SEVEN NOW UP: 'Reflected in the Smoke'. WARNING: contains compromising scenes of a heterosexual nature.
1. Chapter 1

**Smoke and Mirrors**

**Chapter One: Party Fears Two.**

Snape, hunched, still, in his chair.

Snape, expression unfathomable

Snape, with a cut across his left brow, a dark smear across his Roman nose. His hands rest, long fingers splayed, on each knee. I notice his nails, normally cut short and neat, despite that they are usually stained – now they look uneven, split, snaggy. Something dark has slid under the nail and soaked between the calloused flesh and the hard keratin.

I know, immediately, without even looking at his face, I know that he is stricken with emotion, beyond anything he has felt before, and I have seen him in the aftermath of some terrible scenes.

He has killed Dumbledore. The stain beneath the nail cannot be the headmaster's – _Avada Kedavra_ doesn't spill valuable blood. But he sits there like a man to whom the heavens have revealed the most terrible truth. His eyes, always dark, are unmoving, glassy. Only the slightest rise and fall of his chest, and the ticking of a pulse at his pale throat, let me know he is still alive.

_I don't like the look of this._

I kneel at his feet. The last time I did this was here, in this room, with Bella looking on, and Peter trying to listen in. Before that, I had knelt before him to plead with him, yet again, for Draco's life.

Yet again: for Bella had not witnessed the first time I had begged Severus for help. How long ago that seems, less than two years. And, despite my fears that Draco was indeed lost to me, it appears that Severus has kept his promises to me, all of them.

At what cost to himself?

Now his eyes are fixed on mine. After a long, long moment, there is the slight warmth of recognition in their depths.

"Narcissa."

I'm frightened. He frightens me like this, more than when he's being cruel and nasty or even blood-thirsty. This is not normal.

_I don't like the look of this._

I gently touch his hand. It is cold. I take my wand and create fire in the ashy grate in this hovel. The orange lights his features, unnaturally, because he is as cold as the grave.

I only came to thank him, thinking how small and shaky my voice sounds.

"Thank," he says, quietly, as if he doesn't quite understand.

For Draco, I say, my voice like a stranger to me. The others want to throw a party, I say, in his honour. The Dark Lord will be there.

Suddenly he rises. He walks to his shelves and stands with his back to me, as if staring at his books. He remains so for some moments. Finally, I get off my knees and stand on his threadbare hearth-rug, unable to take my eyes off his narrow back. He lifts a volume off a shelf above his head and looks at it, replaces it; then another. The pages rustle as he searches through them.

I say, you can't let anyone see you like this. You look like you regret it. Pettigrew, Pettigrew will–

"Will applaud me," comes the cool response. "I am a hero"

_Act like one._

_I don't like the look of this._

I whisper his name. Nothing returns but the whisper of pages, old pages. Abruptly he turns and flings the book into the flames I have created. I watch the pages shrivel, the hard covers glow at the edges, and glance back at him. He is already looking through another.

Bravely, I tread the creaky floorboards to where he stands. He's blocking me out. He isn't interested. He's never been interested, but I've always had the power, before, to force him to make space for me amidst the plots and the obsessive magics. His proud, cruel demeanour has only inflamed my curiosity, steeled my will. I'm aware that this time it is different.

"Are you?" he scoffed, glancing sideways at me, his lips curled, his teeth bared slightly, the firelight glancing off their uneven edges. I look down at the book he holds. It is written in a language that I don't understand. It could be love poems or suicide curses, I don't know.

"Neither," he grins, maniacally. He replaces the book and takes another.

I say, you don't seem like yourself.

He replaces the book, but this time just stands staring at the rows of exposed spines. I reach out as if to touch his hand, but my nails scrabble at the soft cuff at his wrist. He doesn't move away. I feel skin, taut, cold. I take his hand in both my warm ones, as if he were a child, almost; as once upon a time I had Draco's. I edge closer. I feel hysteria, but I'm not sure whether it's mine or his.

He turns his head and gives me a look that says, Do I look hysterical?

I tell him he's worrying me.

He arches his brows, looking momentarily, genuinely surprised. "I am the one you need to worry least about, Narcissa, surely you have me where you want me."

I remind him that the vow is now discharged; he has fulfilled it.

He gives me an odd look. I don't know what to make of it. It doesn't fall into his usual repertoire of expressions. He is never as simple as he appears to be, trust him or not, there's much more to him than that, and I feel I have just glimpsed it.

It is so astonishingly intimate a moment that he draws his hand away.

"Not that again," he snarls.

Not after your last performance, I bite back, before I can stop myself.

But this is what he likes best, the verbal sparring; he's good at it, warring makes him comfortable. He smiles, his eyes glittering.

"I thought my performance was particularly _outstanding_," he says.

I remind him there is a party to go to, even as he closes in on me.

"They think we're fucking anyway," he reminds me.

But we're not, I squeak, palms flat on his chest, shelves against my back.

"Why not?" he asks, face inches from mine. Whilst I search for some answer, some retort, he adds, in quite a reasonable tone, "It can't always be on your terms, Narcissa. You're a married woman, you know that."

I'm lost for words. I remember my fascinated revulsion. I remember the feel of his body beneath mine, his hardness and heat inside me, his refusal to consummate.

"Not this time," he says, whispering, harsh. "It's been quite a night so far. I'm in the mood for some simpering hero worship."

"Pettigrew's your man," I gasp, even as I feel my fascinated revulsion swell inside me, damning me.

"He's out," he says, and gives a rough laugh. "Regardless of that, I think you should show some appreciation for what I did tonight," he breathes, bracing his arms on the shelves either side of me.

The tears are rolling down my cheeks as I fall to my knees. There is nothing I can do to prevent this. He knows exactly which buttons to press, it's humiliating.

He's ready for me and I take him. His hand caresses my hair, weaving his stained fingers into it, snagging his nails in it and pulling, even though I get the feeling he's trying to be gentle. I feel the power exuding from him, his dark energy, and I feel like I'm drowning in him. Before he comes, he pulls me to my feet, drags some of my clothing off, and lifts me up against the shelves, I wrap my legs around him, he finds the spot and pushes, he lays dry kisses against my bare shoulders, my throat, hiding his expression from my eyes.

The moment comes; it is perfectly timed, like a potions experiment.

Miraculously, he hasn't ripped any of my clothes. I am slick with his ejaculate, though, and we reek of each other. He won't meet my eyes as we straighten our clothes.

I murmur about the party. He says he needs the bathroom. He vanishes through the bookshelves. I take out my wand and clean myself up. I weep, silently, and start laughing, like a fool. My life is a mess. My son is a Death Eater, and surely his days are now numbered. My husband is in prison, safe and sound. I am a slut for an ugly, bad-tempered murderer.

And I don't know what to do.

Still, the fickle part of me is somewhat impressed with Severus. I really didn't think he had it in him. Murder was obviously a turn-on. I catch my reflection in a picture frame, super-imposed onto a picture of one of Severus' ancestors, who tuts at me and waggles her finger. I wipe my face on my hand.

Where is he?

The door upstairs is slightly ajar. I open it, soundlessly. All seems quiet upstairs. I say his name: no response. I climb the narrow stairs – stone, no creaking, only the slight whisper of my robes. Three doors led off a small landing. Two are fully open and reveal dingy bedrooms, lit through the thin curtains by the street light outside. The other is ajar. I say his name again. I hear a noise, but not words.

_Scratch-scratch. Scratch-scratch_.

I push the door open. I think every hinge in this house has been oiled. It reveals a grimy bathroom with a muddy-green coloured suite and a filthy carpet. Severus is standing beside the sink. At first I think he is looking at something on the wall, very closely. His finger tips touch the tile. He drags them down _scratch-scratch_, his nails dragging on the crumbling grout. There are brown streaks left where he touches.

I am momentarily horrified, and want to run.

_Scratch-scratch. Scratch-scratch_.

"Severus?" I go to him.

_Scratch-scratch. Scratch-scratch_.

His forehead is resting against the tiles, angled towards me, away from the mirror above the sink.

"Severus?" I catch his hands. He doesn't resist.

Blood. Under his nails. On the tiles. On my hands.

_At what cost to himself?_

He hated Dumbledore. I believe that he always absolutely despised the man – his need to love everyone, and his belief that love would save the world –

and I remember a night when I shared a chaste bed with this man, to discover that he talks in his sleep –

then, suddenly, I know. The heavens opens its heart to me and lets me glimpse a different scenario, and I know, I know, that every care he has taken to prove himself loyal to the Dark Lord, to us, has been a monumental lie.

Severus acts as if he had just killed his father, a father he loved.

I gasp and draw back, falling against the rickety door and closing it.

His eyelids raise, and he looks at me. He stares. His hands fall from the wall. He says something, too faint to hear, and closes his eyes.

"What?" I hiss.

"Not a coward."

I feel the hairs all over my body standing on end. My fear starts to peak. I look at him, and force myself to breathe, to think, _to cover our fucking tracks._

_Think!_

"Severus," I say, standing straight. "You're the guest of honour. Fashionably late is one thing –"

"Yes," he smiles, "they want to congratulate me on killing Albus Dumbledore."

I grasp my wand and hit him with my best Cheering charm. It might not cheer him, but it might lift him from the depths long enough for me to communicate with him. He takes a deep, shuddering breath.

"If they guess that you loved him, it's all over," I spit and, quite impulsively, strike at him with my wand. I only hit his shoulder.

He looks more lucid. He stands up, glances at the wall, down at his hands.

"I am not myself," he says, concerned, slightly irritated.

"You're a mess!" I exclaim, striking at him again. He doesn't even flinch. He's still looking at his ruined finger nails.

"I tried to look at myself in the mirror," he says, slowly.

I look at the mirror; it is cracked.

"Let me do something with these," I suggest, approaching with my wand. He lets me mend his hands and clean away the blood. I clean the wall, too. "Well, you had me completely fooled. Yourself, too? Didn't you know that you loved him?"

He closed his eyes again, as if in pain. And at the closing of his eyes, the slight grimace, the deepening of the groove on the bridge of his nose, I see it.

I say something, I don't know what. The blood rushes in my ears, I can't hear myself.

"Yes," he says. "Tell anyone, and Draco will die with me. And you. You must see that."

I should have listened to Bella.

I don't quite understand this.

I wish I had not come.

I wish I did not know.

"You are an artful practitioner of Occlumency, when it suits," he says. "Use that gift." He is sounding more like himself. He touches my cheek with his cool hand. "Narcissa."

I feel so alone, again. I feel immense betrayal. I thought I could trust you, I say. The tears have started again, and I can't stop them.

"You can," he says. "I've never sought to harm you or yours, you know that. You can trust me."

"You've just killed someone you loved," I sob. I feel betrayed, so betrayed.

"That was different," he says, his voice cracking. His hand slides around the nape of my neck, and he pulls me gently to him, laying my cheek on his chest. I feel his chest heaving, retching, soundlessly, and I think about what he has done, and I don't understand why, all I know is that he is immeasurably damaged.

And now he has to face his friends, and lie to them, the biggest of lies: which it is, to deny love.

If he could pour that emotion into me, I know he could. He does not love me. But I can almost feel the burn of the wish that I was his, and he was not alone. It is a startling feeling.

"Let's not get carried away," he says. The bass of his voice trembles in his ribs. "We have a party to attend."

I look up into his face. "Do you think you will stay, afterwards?"

His lips shape the slightest of smiles.

_To be continued._

**Thanks to Thirteen Ravens, as always. **

**Please review. This isa WIP so comments and criticisms are most welcome!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two: Justice Met**

Narcissa is practically glued to my side as we leave Spinner's End. I don't feel ready to leave, not by far, but she has forced an out-of-date bottle of Pepper-Up potion down my throat, discovered at the back of my bathroom cabinet, and blasted me with another cheering charm, so I don't feel quite so bad as I did.

Though I feel a sense of guilt: I should feel …. No, there is not a word for what I should feel, not a word good enough, or bad enough.

Anger: no, too soft. Fury? Too expressive. Anguish? Perhaps. Resentful? Yes, possibly. But none quite fit.

Her hand is small and soft in mine. I marvel me how soft women's hands are; like children's, kept like children's hands with lotions and care. But she is no child. I glance at her as we pass quietly through the streets. I took out my impotent feelings on her, I used her, and I almost feel like I could again. Push her into a dark doorway and use her. Defile us both.

There: a small spark of shame. So, I can still feel normal feelings. Lust, shame. Need.

I feel so alone. It was Dumbledore who saved me from this, last time: this poor woman does not match up at all. It will end badly. The aloneness washes through me, a cold tide. I break into a shivering sweat.

She drags me onwards. "Draco," she says over her shoulder. "I don't want to leave him for too long."

"I'm sure he'll be fine," I say. My voice still doesn't sound like my own.

"I've left him in Bella's care," she replies, in a tone that said it all.

"Narcissa." I drag back. She stops and turns, a whirl of black and a hint of gold. "You realise that if the Dark Lord wishes to punish Draco for failing, I am powerless to intervene."

She looks at me, in a way reminiscent of her son: measured and openly calculating. "Then he's insurance for both of us," she whispers, almost gently.

"I mean it."

She drops my hand and turns, walking off again. "So do I."

I'm almost impressed by her coolness. She's a hysterical mother one moment, and a blackmailer the next. It isn't the first time I've seen her play these roles, of course, but what really catches my attention is the clarity with which she is using them.

I realise I am beginning to feel the effects of her cheering charms and the potion. I'm feeling more in control, certainly.

My thought turns to this party. I can't possibly have alcohol, despite the Pepper-Up, which was past its best anyway. And I have no more.

We reach the black, still ribbon of the canal. Away from the Muggles. Narcissa has her wand out. She eyes me confidently, but I can feel her trepidation. I say, "Close your mind. He'll see right through you."

She stares at my chest, blankly, and nods. "And you," she says.

She's right: what am I doing? It will all be over tonight if I don't pull myself together.

But I can't pull myself together. I have no way of telling, yet, where the frayed ends of my composure are. I feel rising panic, guilt, fear –

"I can't," I say, and turn on my heel back towards Spinner's End.

"He will come to you, if you don't come now!" she shrieks at me.

"Keep your damned voice down!" I hiss, turning.

"You must come _now_," she insists, reaching into her cloak. "Look, I brought these! I don't know what they are – I thought – they might help."

From her pretty hands to the unkempt grass fall potions from my cabinet; tiny phials and larger bottles. I drop to my knees and examine them, even though my sense of despair tells me it is useless. Narcissa, never having been one for either potions or long words, wouldn't know what was for an in-growing toe nail and what was life-saving. I sort them into piles: useless, useful and probably too old to be safe.

There are only two piles when I had finished. After all, potions didn't last forever, and for 15 years I have only lived at the house during the summer holidays.

I glance back across the wet roofs of the parallel streets, and idly wonder if I will ever see them again. I did not particularly care if I did not, only if I did not because I was dead.

I stare down at the too-old-to-be-safe collection. If the Dark Lord doesn't get me, the after-effects of any of these just might, if they have degraded beyond hope. Regardless how I might currently feel, the forgetfulness potion is out of the question. I set it to one side; ditto the elixir to induce euphoria: hysteria was all I needed right now.

I am left with half an egg-cup full of the Draught of Peace, and a thimble-full of wit-sharpening potion. To my knowledge they do not react against each other, and there are no dangerously volatile ingredients in either. But I have never taken both at the same time, and this does not seem like the ideal night for experimentation.

…_. coward …._

I don't think I have much choice. There is too little of either.

… _please, Severus ……_

Narcissa is looking down at me with a 'did I do right' expression on her face. I push the larger pile towards her. "Hide these. In a hole, not the canal."

She makes herself busy as I un-stopper the part-bottle of Draught of Peace and take a sniff. The date on the label indicates that I made it two years ago, but it smells normal. I take a sip and run it around my mouth. I drop a little of the other onto the centre of my tongue and wait.

"Can we go now?" asks Narcissa.

I drink the potions in their entirety: she's right, it simply has to be done. I straighten and look at her. She looks moderately composed, but it is spread too thinly over the sheer terror.

I have not said sorry to anyone for 15 years. Now, when it matters least, the word is on the tip of my tongue, but I stop it.

"I regret tonight," I said, thinking about the feel of her.

"Which part?" she asks.

I start to laugh. I find I can't stop. Tears well in my eyes, I'm laughing so hard, almost barking, and the tears spill onto my cheeks. Then I realise it's because I'm crying.

Narcissa looks very concerned. She wrings her hands around her wand. She's not as concerned as I am.

I feel …. Strange.

"Time to go," I sob.

"Merlin," she whispers, aghast.

The light-headedness passes, quite quickly, and all of a sudden I feel good. I stop crying and wipe my face. My throat hurts, so I say carefully, "Well, I'm not dead. Let's go."

"Severus …."

"I'm fine," I say, surprising myself with my confidence. I brush a strand of hair from her cheek. She is wide-eyed. "I must just say one thing. You must remember it, whatever else happens tonight."

"Yes?"

"You must trust me."

She simply stares at me.

"Say it," I order.

"I trust you," she whispers. "Or I wouldn't be here."

I feel for my wand and place my other arms around her slender shoulders. She smells sweet and clean. I don't care now that I was rough and unfair. "Tell me," I say into her hair, "have you ever Apparated whilst kissing? I've heard that strange things can happen. It's that fuzzing of boundaries, not knowing where you end and the other person begins."

And, with a crack, we arrive at the party.

Naturally, as I am probably being hunted the length and breadth of Britain right at this moment, and as the Dark Lord himself is here, my colleagues have commandeered a premises for the occasion, and it has been rendered temporarily unplottable. I stare at the large, dark, silent warehouses stretching out before me. Narcissa hands me a small piece of paper, and I read:

"_The party to celebrate the murder of Albus Dumbledore will take place at_

_Fireworks R Us,_

_11 West Road,_

_Nouvelle Industrial Park,_

_Cumbria."_

The fireworks depot unfolds out of the night, squeezing between the other buildings. Someone has decorated it all over with tiny green lights. Candlelight flickers through the windows – a good mix, fire and fireworks – and I can hear music, Wagner, vibrating softly down the road. And laughter.

The hairs all over my body bristle with expectation. I realise that I am strutting a little. I smile to myself. This is one party I think I am going to enjoy.

"Are the potions working?" Narcissa whispers.

"Oh, yes," I smirk. "Yes indeed."

Avery is on the door. He looks jealous that I'm with Narcissa. His thoughts tell me of his fantasies. I block them out again: distasteful and crude. There is the scent of roasting meat in the air. It occurs to me this might not be meat for eating, but for sport, but I don't feel overly bothered by it. The warehouse is large, lined with crates and boxes and the scent of gunpowder tickles my nose.

Everyone falls silent, except Wagner. Then someone aims a hex, and the house elf orchestra falls silent. The crowds part before me, and I see that the Dark Lord is holding court in the centre, sitting on an old, oak chair upholstered in green velvet. Bellatrix is seated at his feet. There is no sign of Draco.

He watches me as I walk towards him; he is inscrutable, could well be planning to hug me or Crucio me. I kneel at his feet and touch my lips to his hand. As I raise my head, I catch Bella's dark eyes on my face, and I feel an uncharacteristic twitch below my belt: she is looking at me like I'm someone, like I'm famous, like I'm a hero.

Which, of course, I am; though they do not yet know why.

I meet the Dark Lord's red gaze without flinching. I know his eyes are not his most dangerous weapons. And my mind is filled with almost boyish cockiness as he lifts from my mind my knee-jerk fantasy of Bella taking me in her mouth, of me pushing Narcissa against the books and fucking her, of Dumbledore pleading.

Ah, he probes that memory, the fury I feel. And he smiles, and holds out both hands. "My prince," he says. He rises and kisses me, and the crowd claps and caterwauls.

I have passed the test.

"I have a gift for you," he says, softly, coldly, his thin arm draped around me shoulder. He clicks his fingers, and a small, pale figure is thrust as if from nowhere into our midst.

Draco.

Despite my absurd sense of well-being, caution hooks my attention, a warning born of years of paranoia. I am careful of broadcasting my emotions to him, but an intellectual part of me ticks the box beside the item for this evening that says: _test part two – justice to be meted out on those who failed to please._

There are currently three people in this room who believe I will do anything for them. Each of them is wrong.

…_. Please, Severus ….._

Draco regards me with total fear and some anger. I stole his glory, after all. He wanted to supplant me at the Dark Lord's side, or at least he thought he did. He thought, at half my age, he was the more powerful. I've had the applause he should have had, and now he's not only embarrassed after so much posturing and juvenile pride, but he's in fear of his life. He knows.

Narcissa's terror claws at my attention. I give her a cold look in passing and step down from the dais and approach the prisoner, looking him up and down. He is unmarked apart from a facial scratch I saw him sustain as we fled under fire from Hogwarts. Sweat glistens on his face, on the boyish fluff on his top lip. He'll never make it to being a man if he continues like this. He simply has no comprehension of power or strength or bravery, of morality or selflessness or –

The fury wells in me, and I raise my wand and lash invisible cords at him. Blood rises in welts across his chest, soaking through the linen of his expensive shirt as it had when Potter cursed him. He turns paler, but doesn't move, I'll give him that, though it might look better if he fell to his knees.

The Dark Lord says, "You failed, Malfoy."

"May I say, I'm not too disappointed, Master," I smirk. From the corner of my eye, as I slowly prowl around Draco, I see Bella standing beside Narcissa.

"Nevertheless," the Dark Lord replies, his voice tinkling in the steel rafters above, "he failed me. Had you not been there, Severus, the entire operation would have been a catastrophe."

"You know you can rely on me, Master," I say.

"You interfered!" Draco exclaims, his pale eyes blazing at me.

"Do you hear that, Severus? You interfered."

"The boy doesn't have the power, Master." I smile at Draco. "We suspected as much."

"I think, perhaps, he just didn't _feel_ he had it in him," the Dark Lord, replies, and suddenly I get a hint of something else, another hidden danger. "I understand. To kill, in cold blood, takes something, Malfoy. You just have to take a little, sometimes, the first few times, in order to get there. Perhaps Dumbledore hadn't …. made you angry enough."

_Ah._

"Master," Draco says, earnestly, "Snape always wanted this for himself -!"

I'm sure he will say more, and so I indulge myself with a muscle-cramping hex. Draco cries out between gritted teeth and slips to his knees.

"I trust Severus Snape," the Dark Lord says. "His judgement is beyond reproach. However, if I am to believe this, I must take him at his word that you are too weak to be useful to me."

Draco glances beseechingly towards his mother. This annoys me tremendously, it is completely against grown-up rules. _Spoiled brat_: and I am as culpable as anyone. I rip at his back with my invisible whip and he groans, head bowed to the floor.

"Answer your Master," I hiss in his ear.

Something clatters onto the floor. "Yes," the Dark Lord says, almost sickly-sweet, "do it, Draco."

It is Draco's wand, lying beside his clenched hand.

Nobody in the room moves.

Then Draco rises with his wand in his hand and points it at me. I smirk at him, lowering mine, because I know that the Dark Lord is right: using the killing curse on cats and rats is one thing, using hate to fuel it is another, but Draco just doesn't quite hate me enough.

I'm still smirking when the curse hits me and lifts me off my feet. The crowd scatters and I hit the hard floor. My shoulder cracks, sickeningly. My sight is blinded by green light …

He used the killing curse!

After a moment, I sit up. My would-be murderer can just be seen though green-blotted vision. He's standing at my feet, but his wand is by his side. He knows he can't do it.

Remarkably, perhaps, I feel quite proud of him. And relieved.

The Dark Lord's laugh peals around the warehouse. "Full marks for effort. Help him up, Mr Malfoy."

For one shocking moment, I think he's talking to the man whose wife I have been fucking – but, no, it's Draco that moves. _Mr_: he's been promoted to manhood. He offers his hand to me and helps me stand. Through my clearing vision I scrutinise his expression, but he's wearing that closed, stubborn bottom lip. I gently probe his thoughts, but he knows me by now and is closed there too. I can't break in without really upsetting him.

"Well," I say, "I didn't think you had it in you."

He smirks back at me.

"And you don't." I turn my back on him, brushing myself down one-handed and calling for a drink: the pain of my arm has completely cleared my head, which isn't a good thing.

"I knocked you off your feet," Draco whispered at my shoulder.

"Well done," I drawl, unconcerned.

"You'll stay, for now, Mr Malfoy," the Dark Lord said, losing interest, returning to his chair. "Severus, he's yours. Train him well."

"Thank you, Master, I shall." I gesture to where I know Pettigrew is sitting without even looking at Draco again. "Sit with Wormtail. Where's my drink?"

Bellatrix brings it to me, a large glass of red wine. She says nothing, but her eyes don't leave mine.

The Dark Lord says, "Let there be music!"

"Narcissa," I say, quietly to Bellatrix.

"Puking out back," she says, and smiles.

I follow a corridor of crates towards the back of the warehouse. I can guarantee that by morning these will be ash spread over a large area. On the way I stop and relocate my arm. I feel sick afterwards and slug back half the wine.

I find Narcissa in a dingy washroom. Her eyes are red and puffy. She is still sobbing and smells sour.

Finally, she says, "I trusted you."

I click my tongue in annoyance.

"I trusted you!"

"Well done," I snap, and turn on my heels.

She pulls at my bad arm and I wince and fall against the door, swearing.

"What have I done?" she asks, concerned, motherly.

I narrow my eyes at her. "Exactly _when_ did you rush out to be sick?"

"No," she says, lowering her eyes, "I saw him use the killing curse."

"_Try_ to use it."

"I'm sorry," she says, "I'm sorry … I know you had to do what you did."

I turn and lean my head against the cool tiles. I stare at the tiles. I remember my nails. The weight of what I have done tumbles without warning into my present.

I don't know how I am going to live with this. And not just live, but win. And how can I win, if I have already killed Dumbledore? Even if the Dark Lord is vanquished, even then ….

Narcissa takes my hand, and touches her wand to my shoulder, and murmurs something. The pain goes, and I know I will now be able to get drunk.

As if Narcissa can read my mind, she smiles, and leads me back towards Wagner, and the red wine, and my new servant boy who wants to kill me.

_To be continued: don't forget to sign up for email alerts!_

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**IMPORTANT NOTES AND NODS:**

'Fireworks R Us' is a name used many times in real life and all over the world, but in this instance does not refer to any real existing company or location in Cumbria, UK.

I think it's worth mentioning at this point that there will be no Draco/Severus sex in this fic; not the right time or place, despite the fact that 'servant boy' does sound a tad kinky.

If you do want some testosterone-pumped m/m action, turn to my fic 20/20, though it's not a pleasant story so far and contains scenes of male rape, so beware.

_Lizella_ – there's less party in this than I originally anticipated – but if you like the thought of a DE party, then 'Party Night' (see menu) will be right up your street.

Thanks to _Thirteen Ravens_ for her supreme editing and proof-reading skills ;-)

**And last, but not least - thank you for reading, and I hope you can take a moment to review!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three: Remedial Potions**

It is the third day since Dumbledore died.

Our Manor is now one of the most warded houses in England. My father's friends – and mine, I suppose, now – had worked on the magic all the previous day. Not that father had ever really left our home unprotected. Just, now, it was also unplottable.

As a result, I have to go and get Pansy from a meeting place half way to the village, which I was forbidden to do as I am probably now a wanted man. We walk back in awkward silence. I eventually feel for her hand, but it is like holding the hand of an _Inferus_: limp and cold.

Of course, she hadn't been at the celebration, and therefore had not seen my bravery in facing the Dark Lord's anger, or attack Snape. She only knows that I'd failed to kill Dumbledore. Still, I am glad she had come.

We climb the wall into a secret part of the garden, near a ramshackle summerhouse in the trees west of the house, surrounded by trees and shrubs and carpeted with long grass. I have brought Butterbeer and sweets with me, and a rug that I lay out after stamping down the grass. I lie on my back with my head on Pansy's lap and stare up into the dappled green light of a tree and she strokes her fingers slowly through my hair, the way she often did. I don't remember ever appreciating it quite so much.

We don't talk about anything.

When the house elf comes to tell me that Master Snape wants to see me in his office, Pansy helps me pack the things away and roll the blanket up, and I walk her back to the spot where she can safely leave. I move to kiss her, and she turns her face aside and places her lips on my cheek instead of my lips, and it hurts me and angers me, but I say nothing.

"Stay in touch," she whispers, looking sad, and Disapparates.

Snape's office is a room in one of the vast maze of cellars that spread under the house. I had only discovered the day before that my Potions professor had been permitted a base there since before I was born, though after the Dark Lord had almost been defeated by Potter he had rarely used it. It has been reopened, and the wards altered to permit me to enter as long as I am expected. I can feel the wards prickling my skin as I made my way along the narrow passageways with only my wand for light until I near the door, which is slightly ajar. I go inside, tucking my wand into my robes.

"What took you so long?" Snape was seated at a scarred oak desk, his quill skittering across parchment at an alarming speed, leaving narrow, scrawling words in its wake.

"I had a guest I had to see off the premises." I added, with effort, "Sorry."

The quill pauses and Snape looks up. "Parkinson?"

I give a slight nod, then say, "Yes, sir."

"Get permission next time. You are not permitted to leave the grounds alone, or let anyone enter without asking me or your mother." He finishes writing a sentence then lays down his quill and looks at me. I hate his ugly face and the fact he seems not to mind how he looks, but I keep my thoughts just below the surface, because I know how good at Legilimency he is.

He stands and moves to a door behind him. His new office is actually an antechamber for a larger room beyond, and I see it for the first time as the door swings open. He beckons me to follow him. It's a potions laboratory. It's not a large room, maybe ten paces square, with wide stone slabs running along the walls for work benches. I can feel a slight draught running past my cheek, as if the place is vented to the outside. There are three potions in progress on the right hand side of the room. This side of the room looks as if it has been cleaned. The left is filthy, in the way only sub-terranian rooms get, all slimy dirt and cobwebs and dead insects and rodents.

At my feet sits a bucket of steaming water and a scrubbing brush. Snape meets my gaze, gives a slight smile, and pushes past me to go back into his office.

"You have to be joking," I say, tightly.

"Have you ever known me to, Draco?" he asks, already half-immersed in a book.

"Get a house elf to do this. It's a waste of my time."

He snaps the book shut and glares at me. I glare back, because I'm not frightened of him, not now. His expression softens a little. "Hard work is a shock to you, Draco, because you've been spoiled. I am as culpable as your parents in this matter. I intend to redress the balance."

"You're not my father," I snarl, "you can't tell me what to do!"

He stares at me for a moment, calculating, thoughtful. "Try me," he says, softly.

I turn and kick the bucket across the floor.

He's on me quicker than a spider on a fly. He doesn't even use magic. His hand is closed around my throat and he presses me down onto one of the stone work benches. It reminds me of the Mudblood Granger, when she slapped me in our third year.

"No," he says, softly, feeling for my wand, "magic is too good for you, spoiled little child Draco. You're as bad as Potter. Neither of you have any discipline at all and you will both die as a result. Unfortunately my friendship with your mother means that, one way or another, I must do my best by you. Therefore, you will learn some discipline." He finally seems to notice I cannot breathe, and releases his hold and steps away from me.

"When my father hears about this- " I spit.

"The sooner the better," he says, coolly. "You may write to him this evening. On the condition that this room is scrubbed clean. Do not try to interfere with these potions, they are warded and, believe me Draco, that would incur a _most_ _serious_ punishment."

I know then that I _will_ kill him.

Later he leaves without saying where he is going, and I'm glad of the easing of pressure in the air. I'm completely filthy and wet and I'm on the tenth bucket of water and third scrubbing brush. I've so committed myself to doing this by hand that I don't even consider using magic when he leaves.

There's something therapeutic about menial work; it clears the mind. I've been plotting for hours how I'm going to kill him. He probably knows that, even though he can't read my thoughts. So far, I've imagined all kinds of painful deaths, but as it appears obvious that I'm not as powerful as he is, nor as good at potions, there has to be another way.

When he goes, and I'm not harangued by the weight of his presence, I get the breakthrough I've been looking for. I scrub viciously at the stone flags on the floor, sliding the bristles of the brush into the grooves clogged with centuries of filth … and out pops something solid. I take it for a stone, and pick it up to discard it, but something about its regular features captures my attention. I clean it in the grimy water, and it sparkles a little. A gemstone, green, perhaps jade or emerald, oval shaped. It winks on my open palm like an evil eye.

I've seen something like it before. In my father's secret cache, under the dining room floor. My father had panicked and sold off some of the things he kept there, but is still, to my knowledge, a sizeable collection of Dark artefacts.

A Dark artefact, to help me get rid of Snape. It had failed with Dumbledore, but then I had to admit, my heart just hadn't been in it. Snape just continued to push me down, was obviously intent on humiliating me, as Dumbledore had not.

I shoved my feelings of guilt aside at my part in the murder. I hadn't hated Dumbledore, particularly, I had had no choice, it was business. _But Snape_ …. I turned the gem over in my hand; if this did not belong to something powerful, then there would certainly be something down there that did.

Why wait? I'm not good at waiting. I wanted to go now, to see the Dark objects. So I did. I left my brush and bucket and sprinted down the dark corridor and up a short, narrow stone staircase two-at-a-time. This brought me to another corridor, longer, just as dark. I went more carefully, feeling my way along the dry walls that flaked under my fingertips. I think this is why the bastard took my wand, thinking it would keep me underground: not so, not likely. I can smell the musty richness of the wine cellars that lead off this corridor. I follow the curve and fall up another flight of steps, then go slowly, trying to remember how many. The darkness seems to be lessening. I can smell …. roast beef. I'm hungry. My senses tell me I have reached the door, and yes, it's here: I push it open a crack, and grey light greets me: I'm in a dark scullery off the kitchens.

The dining room isn't far away now. I squeeze through the maze of store rooms and through the washroom to an outside door to avoid the house elves. I walk quickly along the side of the house and clamber over the window sill through the open sash into the morning room. I dart to the door and listen: I hear a sound, but I can't say what it is or where it is coming from. I slip down the hall, the carpet muffling my steps. I can see the dining room, the door is open. Most of the doors along the hall are open, though some only partly. I pass the sitting room, mother's room, and I hear the sound again. I pause. The door is almost, almost completely, shut. I press my eye to the crack hinge-side, and peer in.

Snape: I recognise the dark set of his shoulders, the way his hair falls over them in lank tresses. He's in front of an Italian sideboard, staring ahead into a mirror.

My mother's face is reflected there.

Through the gloom I see she is held there, by him. Fear shoots through me. One of his hands holds her by the hair; it's twisted through his ugly fingers. His other hand holds her skirts up to her hips, I can see the backs of her legs, and now the way her arms are braced on the mirror frame. She looks back at him in the glass. He is moving against her. The mirror rattles slightly in the wood. Mother makes a small sound in the back of her throat.

My hand is raised, ready to shove the door open; but I don't. I know that sound, from the numerous times I've almost walked in on her and my father.

Suddenly, I wish I am blind and deaf. I fall away from the door, my mouth dry, covered from head to toe in hot, sweaty shame and utter revulsion. I gasp for breath. I turn and stagger into the dining room and hide myself behind the door, heart thudding, legs shaking. I catch sight of myself in the glass door of a cabinet: I look ghastly.

Pain: I relax my fist and find the gem imprinted into my palm.

The secret chamber is beneath the table. I crawl beneath and belatedly remember I haven't got my wand. For a brief moment, I feel like I might actually catch alight with the intensity of my anger and frustration. My fingers scrabble uselessly at the polished boards, unable to find the joins. I try the incantation wandlessly, but it doesn't work.

I must return to the cellars empty-handed. But he'll give me my wand back soon; this is a mere hiccough.

I return to the cellar. I refill the bucket and get to my knees and begin to scrub again. It doesn't seem to be getting any cleaner. A tear drops from my eye and gets swallowed in the grime. Then I can't stop the sobs, silent and fierce, as I think about my father, alone in a prison cell, and his friend cuckolding him, and his wife …

How can my mother let him do _that_ to her? He must be forcing her …. He must be, blackmailing her perhaps, there _must_ be a reason!

My head spins with it. I can't get the image out of my head, or the sound, or the fact that she does it with _him_, out of anybody else – and she's beautiful enough to get any of them she wants –

"Not finished yet?" He stands in the doorway, sallow-faced but for a hint of pink high on his cheeks, even in this light. Like nothing has happened. A line appears between his brows. "Are you crying?"

"Don't be ridiculous," I say through my teeth.

"Don't be ridiculous, _sir_," he corrects, stonily. "Keep going."

And he turns and takes his seat at his desk, and picks up his quill. It's a long time until I hear the scratch of his writing, however, and I know he's thinking about what he's just done to her.

I curse him silently and secretly with each circle I make with the brush, and paint a picture in my mind of him suffering, his face contorted, lying at my feet, dying, and my father coming up and saying _"Well done, Draco!"_ and we wipe our feet in the bastard's blood and spit on him and watch as the ravens peck out his eyes.

"That's enough."

I look up, quickly. He's in the doorway again, holding out my wand. "That's enough for today," he said. "Six in the morning, here, ready to scrub. Your mother is expecting us both for dinner in half-an-hour, and you stink like Mundungus Fletcher. Go. Now."

I snatch my wand, and leave, as quickly as possible. He's right, I do smell; but as I pass him, I catch a familiar scent, and it's one that my father bought my mother as a present.

In the dark and quiet of the cellar corridors, alone, I snarl.

_To be continued. Don't forget to sign up for email updates._

* * *

**NOTES AND NODS**

Snape is back, in abundance, next chapter, up soon: **_'Graveside'_**.

Thanks SO MUCH for your reviews: **Mistress Siana, Emily Anne, qusj, theletterk, Lizella, Thirteen Ravens**, and to the rest of you for putting me on your favs/alerts list.

And to **Thirteen Ravens** for putting up with the constant barrage of stuff to beta (I've curently got 2 WIPs): you're a star. With knobs on.


	4. Chapter 4

**Smoke and Mirrors **

_WARNING: Please note this chapter includes sexual scenes of a heterosexual nature. _

**Chapter Four: Graveside**

Dawn sunlight slants through the gap in the curtains onto my face as I turn over, restlessly. I'm too warm. I push the covers down over my body. My eyes snap open. I am naked, under silk sheets. I sit up. I am in Narcissa's room. I glance down at her, and for a moment it is as if I am a different man in a different time.

She is, as many say, a beautiful woman. Age does not touch her (I suspect partly because she is a Metamorphmagus) but defines her beauty in a way I find more curiously attractive. She is asleep, on her side turned towards me, her hair coiled around her face, her arm over her ribs, her breasts bared, their nipples rosy.

I feel my body respond. It brings me back to reality: Severus, not a poet or a lover, but a liar and a murderer and taker of another man's wife.

Lucius has never seemed to care. But he has always valued the wrong things.

Not for the first time I consider how I have managed to end up in a sexual situation with Narcissa. It could almost seem fated, if I believed in fate. She has pursued me, grasped at me, and tried to manipulate me into her bed, yet when I finally gave way it was not because of what she wanted, but because of what I needed.

Love it is not. I remind myself of that. I have loved, and I know what love feels like, and this is not it. Yet when I look upon her I get a sense of a man I might have been, had things been different, if I had made different choices and more effort and seen the world through the eyes of an ordinary man.

I am not sure, however, even in retrospect, that I would have done things differently. Perhaps we are who we are, and there is nothing to be done.

I reach out my hand to touch her breast. The discolouration of my skin and nails looks ugly against the wondrous pale and rose of her flesh. This makes me harder. I cup her breast, watching the pressure of my fingers swell the flesh. She stirs a little, catching her breath. I push her gently onto her back and dip my hand between her thighs, parting them. She sighs again, a small, erotic sound. I fling the covers back and kneel up between her legs, lifting them and pushing them back to her belly. I'm inside her before she is fully awake, relishing the expression of surprise on her face, revelling in my power, watching the reflection of my ugliness play in her wide and beautiful eyes.

I take her three different ways before I'm done. There is a smear of blood in evidence when I release her, and I'm not sure which of us it has come from; more to the point, I do not care. I fall onto my back and catch my breath, my eyes closed.

It makes me feel bad when she slides across and rests her head in the crook of my arm. I've satisfied her, I know, but she still feels used. She knows I don't love her. Even though she feels no love for me, she would still like the pretence. I place a dry kiss on the top of her head. She rests her arm across my ribs and her leg over mine. She has not asked me again if I would like her to change into someone else. It is as if she knows I would never correctly reveal my secret desire.

That thought makes me hard again: this is _insane_. She takes me in her hand, then after a moment gets on top of me. It's a punishing ride. Her eyes blaze, her cheeks blaze, but her hair is the wrong colour. I close my eyes, gritting my teeth against this mindless lust, that is so powerful it hurts, _it hurts_ ….

"I want you all the time," she whispers into my shoulder as she rests on top of me. "I can't think of anything else."

"I believe I have a potion for that," I murmur, automatically.

She breathes a laugh into my neck. "I believe I've had it."

I stroke her flank and delve deeper.

"But I could take some more," she adds, muffled.

"You don't stand a chance," I say: my body feels done in.

"Potion?" she murmurs, hopefully.

I give her my fingers instead. I clamp my other hand over her mouth to stop her screaming. I disgust and fascinate myself with the violence of it. After she has come, she licks herself off my fingers, and I don't think I have ever seen a woman look so feral. The sense of wrongness returns to me, but I know that I am enjoying myself more than I have for a long, long time.

I snap back to reality again with a jolt, a cold sweat. I know I am hiding. I cannot hide forever.

I can't leave her rooms smelling like I do, of her, so I need to wash. She wants to bathe with me, but I don't let her. I have an errand, so I take the bathroom first and leave her dozing, spent, twisted amid the pastel silks on the bed. Once in the bath, I rue my mistake, for everything in the bathroom is scented to her good, but feminine, tastes. I summon a house elf and he brings me something plain, and fresh clothes from my room.

I stand over the bed for a long moment, watching her sleep. I know that this cannot end well. Our days are numbered, and I am surprised when I sense the slightest pang of regret.

I had once said to her:_ "Your aptitude for self-delusion never ceases to amaze me. You wanted to see yourself reflected in my eyes."_

_See it for what it is, _I tell myself now_: no more, or less. _

I sit amid a crowd of mourners.

The ceremony has not taken so long. It was as simple as Dumbledore had instructed it should be. He had told me I should not come, but when it came to it, I knew I could not stay away.

In that promise, at least, I have failed.

I only know how much time has passed by the subtle vibration of my wand upon the hour, which reminds me to take the Polyjuice again. I carefully pop the phial and swig it discreetly from a handkerchief, with unsmiling humour thinking of the woman who would be incensed to know how I was using her likeness.

All the mourners are moving away. It is a relief not to have their presence pressing upon me from all sides. I stand up and plot a path to exit this place, and my eyes fall upon Potter.

He is standing with his school friends. There is a stark difference between the way they look, and the way he does. He looks like a man, now. There is a … poise to him, clear in the set of his shoulders and the lines of his expression, that Draco has not yet achieved. The others just look like grief-stricken orphans. The Weasley girl is beside him, close enough to touch him, but not. I wonder what has happened between them, a teenaged falling-out no doubt, an inability on his part to juggle grief and life.

For a brief moment, his eyes alight on me, then he glances away again. I turn away and choose a path that will not take me close to him, or to other people whom, as Dolores Umbridge, I wanted to avoid. Between the two of us, that was the majority of the people here.

I feel numb, unsatisfied. What was I expecting? Drama? We've had our surfeit of that. An effigy of me, burning? It might have been … satisfying. Potter's anger is almost tangible. It will be his undoing, as it is Draco's. If he wasn't so young, I would not be in this position.

If I had not betrayed him, whilst he was still a baby.

The thought catches in my throat, I almost stumble into someone, then waddle on, unsure of these short, dumpy legs. I must get off Hogwarts grounds and Apparate. The irony that I look other than myself, and that I feel like someone else is not lost on me. The growing sense that I no longer know myself presses upon my resolve. I have the awful thought that I can no longer trust myself, and I am not sure where this feeling comes from.

At Malfoy Manor, I have a room that faces to the west. In the afternoon light, I stand by the bureau that Narcissa has kindly had brought for my use, and open a small box. It contains a few very personal items. I lift from it a ring set with a large Bloodstone gem. It is gold, an old, soft gold. The band is worn, though still substantial. I smooth my thumb over the curve of the stone, the edge of my nail finds the small clip, and I gently prise it open.

A small curl of red hair falls gently onto a sheet of parchment on my blotter.

I press my eyes closed against its frail truth. When I open them again, it is still there. How miraculous, that the woman whose head it came from has been dead for fifteen years, and it looks as if it could have been clipped from her head only this morning.

…_.It's for luck, Severus…._

I reach out a reluctant finger, and touch it, and snap my hand away again. It is real.

…_friends give each other gifts, don't they? …._

Did Slughorn, the humbug, realise what he had begun with his club? There were people who met there who never should have got to know each other.

…_now what can you give me?…_

"Death and betrayal," I whisper, and I clamp my jaw against the emotion that rises. I pull up a chair and sit down. I take a small tool wallet from a drawer and take a pair of tweezers. Carefully, I tease a single hair from the curl, without disturbing the rest. I fold it in a square of parchment and place it in the wallet with the tweezers. I have to touch the curl with my fingers to press it carefully, so carefully, back into the poison ring.

With my concentration, the emotion is dissipated. I realise that this is what I do, I focus. _I must not lose this focus. _

Unbidden, Narcissa's image rises in my mind's eye, and my desire rises with it. _Undone by a woman_, I think, wryly. But the image is enjoyable. I cannot live in the same house and avoid her, not think about the respite being with her gives me. And I have nowhere else to go.

Only to my chosen doom. And I have chosen it. I cannot blame Dumbledore any more. I cannot blame Voldemort or Lily. Or even Slughorn. Or my father, who did not love me; or my mother, who did.

I look up out of the window and see Draco wending his way slowly home. His head is bowed and he kicks the grass with his feet as he walks, his whole body tight with frustration and undirected fury. I find myself shaking my head, as a father might do, perhaps. The clock on the mantle emits a single musical note. I place the ring back in the box and close it, and go to the bathroom to wash for dinner.

Narcissa is alone in the dining room. She checks over my shoulder to see that no-one is watching, then slides her hands up to my shoulders, looking deeply into my eyes. She is wearing an elegant lilac dress. I know how she looks out of that dress. I imagine tearing the fragile cloth, ripping the fine weave, wrenching it from her body. She kisses me, almost chastely, but not quite, a small smile upon her lips. I get that brutal feeling again, like boiling lava at the base of my spine. There's no time for fucking. An image shoots into my head of striking her, with the back of my hand, her head snapping back as she falls…

Sometimes, I appal myself.

We sit down just as Draco appears. He looks quite untidy, studiously so, but neither of us comment. First course arrives.

"How has your afternoon off been, Draco?" I ask, politely.

"Great," he responds, curtly.

"Didn't I see you with Pansy earlier?" Narcissa asks.

He shoots a quick look between us. "Yes."

"I thought Severus has said you must ask permission before bringing visitors into the grounds."

His eyes move from me to his mother. "Yes. Sorry. I forgot."

"No, you did not," I say, quite evenly, knowing that Draco knew that tone well.

He simply looks at me, waiting for the hammer to fall, not looking at all concerned. But it is Narcissa who speaks.

"I will contact Pansy's mother tomorrow. I'm afraid she won't be able to visit until further notice."

Draco pauses for a moment, then slowly cracks open a bread roll. He tears a piece off and places it in his mouth, chews, and swallows.

"Why?" he says, finally.

"Because I say so," Narcissa replies, softly, her face a mask.

Draco tears off another piece. Chews. Swallows.

"I don't agree," he says.

I stare at him. He doesn't look at either of us. Narcissa casts me a helpless look. I smile.

"Perhaps you do not," I say, "however –"

"Pansy can come when she likes," he cuts in, and gives me an odd smile, a knowing smile. "Or should I say, as often as I like her to come." He gives a short laugh and takes a sip of claret. "Which was, I believe, twice today."

He lays the challenge on the table between us. In a flash I see that he strongly suspects about his mother and I. I have not prepared myself for this. Still, he is but a child –

"I don't want to know about your sex life, please, Draco," Narcissa says, maternally embarrassed.

Draco's mouth twists. I don't like the look of it. "But it's perfectly fine for me to know about yours," he says in a tight little voice.

Narcissa is frozen in the act of lifting her glass.

Draco turns his head slightly towards me and raises his eyes. They blaze, ice cold, colder than a Scottish winter, then he turns this gaze upon her and she is captured, her eyes wide and horrified.

"You could have picked someone more appropriate, mother," he says, softly and with cutting derision. "Snape. _For Merlin's sake_. Someone of our own class, at least. Someone who bathes –"

"Enough!" she gasps, and I don't know whether this is because she is defending me, or whether she cannot bear to listen to the truth.

I myself am quite fascinated. I don't know quite what to say or feel above this.

"My father is in prison -!"

"Your father has nothing to do with –"

"He'll kill him!" He turns to me, jumping up and upsetting his plate. "He'll kill you!"

"He knows!" Narcissa cries.

Draco stares at her.

"Yes," I say, "he _knows_, so sit down, you foolish boy."

Draco raises his arm, and too late I see his wand, but even at this distance the hex passes over my shoulder because the boy is shaking so violently. This quite disgusts me. I snatch the wand off him and toss it into the corner.

"Go to your room," Narcissa says, quietly.

Draco turns and thrusts his chair back violently.

"No, Severus, I mean you," she says.

I push back my chair and walk to the door. His eyes burn into the back of my head. I am glad he has not got his wand. I am not sure that, this time, he would fail to mean the killing curse.

_To be continued. _

* * *

_**NOTES AND NODS**_

The next chapter 'Veritaserum' leads on directly from this and involves an exasperated Severus, a furious Draco, and a determined Narcissa, and one of them is in a compromising position. Sign up for email updates!

THANK YOU Thirteen Ravens for the beta; Aiden2, Jade Green, Morgan, finalfantasy, Aimee, theletterk, qush3, Mistress Siana, Emily Anne, qusj and Lizella for the reviews.

The quote: _"Your aptitude for self-delusion never ceases to amaze me. You wanted to see yourself reflected in my eyes." _is from my fic 'Sins of the Mother'.

Bloodstone (Jasper or Heliotrope) – can turn the sun's rays red if cast into water. If worn can turn the wearer invisible. Can help to heal a lover's argument. Can strengthen the blood and give vitality.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter five: ****'Veritaserum'**

"Sit down, Draco."

I glance back to her, my mother, her cheeks flushed and her eyes steady and serious. She looks like aunt Bella, but the light side of darkness, impossibly bright with the misleading appearance of fragility, as Bella is the dark side of light with the misleading appearance of brutality.

Slowly and deliberately, I pull up my chair and sit down. A house elf appears to my mother's silent call and tidies the mess on the table and vanishes again. I am bored. I think about Bella and the kisses she gave me at the party. I think fleetingly about Pansy, and return to my thoughts of Bella again. A whisper of cloth distracts me: mother is walking the room. She passes the sideboard where I first saw her with Snape. I banish the memory with an image of my own, of me, and Bella. I wonder how I can bring this into being.

Finally, she says, "Severus is a guest in our house –"

" – showing him the best hospitality?" I grimace at the whining pitch in my voice.

She stops pacing and looks at me with almost a look of disgust. I return it. She says, "He is an esteemed guest. We owe him much, more than you can imagine in your immaturity, Draco. You will show him the respect he is due."

"You don't expect me to have sex with him, do you?" I ask, with mock horror.

Her nostrils flare. She regards me in freezing silence. It makes me uncomfortable that she hasn't shouted or hit me. I think, somehow, I deserve it, even though I know I'm in the right to feel as I do.

"My relationship with Severus is none of your business," she says, quietly.

"What about dad?"

"These are grown-up affairs that you can know nothing of."

"Does he know?"

She sighs. "Yes."

I turn this over and examine it. Dad must be gutted. Cuckolded by a greasy, beak-faced, arrogant _teacher_.

_Merlin_.

I hazard a guess. "I suppose the only reason Snape is still alive is because of the Dark Lord."

She takes a moment to consider this. "You assume that your father minds," she murmurs. She sits down again and we both take a drink of wine.

"Why shouldn't he mind?"

"Because he –" she stops herself, takes a deep breath and meets my eyes. "He has his own relationships." When I open my mouth to ask, she adds, quickly, "And they are his business, so I won't discuss them with you."

I close my mouth. She toys with the stem of her wine glass. She says, "I realise, Draco, that this makes you very uncomfortable, upset. You feel betrayed. Possibly, you feel that we don't love you, or one another. We do love you, and we do love each other."

I am shocked to see a tear roll down her cheek. It splatters darkly onto her dress. She dabs once at her cheek with a napkin. My guts clench. I ask, in a tone harsher than I mean, "Is Snape forcing you?"

She looks briefly amazed, then actually laughs, and for a moment I see the Bella in her, which makes me uncomfortable though I can't think why. "Alright," she says, in a different tone, "alright, Draco. You want to be a man. You want to talk with the grown-ups. Obviously, yes you do. You had delusions that you could kill, and found you couldn't, then found that you might be able to. So you think you're now a man." She slams her palm onto the table and the cutlery rattles. "Wrong! Wrong, Draco! Killing does not make you a man, or f-fucking, or lying or being arrogant!"

I sneer, "You're describing your lover, I believe."

She is furious now, still and furious. She struggles as if she can't trust herself to speak, so she drinks again, lifting her glass with a shaking hand. The sight of her makes me hate her. I lower my eyes.

Her voice is barely more than a whisper. "Does it interest you at all that, in the present climate, I trust him possibly more than I trust any other person?"

I shake my head, then ask, "More than dad?"

She gives me a bitter smile. "Your dad isn't here, is he?"

"He's in –"

"A prison with practically an open door. Ask yourself why he has not escaped yet."

I brush that aside. "We don't know what it's like in –"

"I have visited him," she says, softly.

I've had enough now and push my chair back. "Is that all, mother?"

Her gaze is level. A house elf appears and she bends to whisper in its ear, and it pops off again. "Remain in your seat."

"Have you summoned Snape?" I demand, uneasily.

"I think _Professor_ Snape might be stretching things a bit," she says, "but a _mister_ would show willing, Draco."

"No way," I murmur.

"I thought so," she sighs. The house elf appears and she accepts something small into her hand. I hear soft footfalls on the carpet in the hallway and cast around for my wand. It is unreachable unless I get up. Mother moves around the table and refills all our glasses. Snape pauses in the doorway.

"Come in, please, Severus," she says. She has my wand in her hand with her own. She holds out her free hand and Snape looks sceptically at it, noting the others. I expect him to tell her where to go but to my surprise he disarms himself to her. Immediately, a house elf appears, takes all three wands, and leaves on foot, closing the door behind it.

Mother sits down and Snape, with a cool glance in my direction, does the same.

"I'm sorry, Severus," she says.

He arches a brow. "It happens often," he dismisses, "at some dinner tables."

She raises her drink to toast, and he clinks his glass and drinks deeply. I ignore their offers and drink anyway.

"I was hoping," mother says, dabbing at the corner of her mouth with the napkin, "that I could change Draco's mind about you, Severus."

He looks wary and yet amused. "I've never imagined that Draco had any other opinion of me than the correct one, Narcissa," he says. _He nauseates me._

"Nevertheless," she says, refolding the napkin and laying her hands over it on the table, "there are facets to you he can't possibly know. And I would like him to."

He is instantly alert, shown only in the sudden tightness of his shoulders and the tautness of his slight sneer. I realise that I've come to read him like a book, but there is something mother is hinting at that I obviously don't know.

Despite myself, I'm interested. New information might be useful.

"I can't imagine what Draco would find in me to change his mind," Snape says, with the faintest of edges.

Mother is absently fidgeting with a corner of her napkin. "I would very much like to change his mind," she says, very softly, and I detect a tremor in her voice.

Snape is staring at her very hard, then it seems he feels my gaze upon him and turns his cold, pitiless eyes on me. I find I drop mine first. "What is it?" I joke in an embarrassed splutter. "Is this where you tell me he's really my dad?"

Snape hisses between his teeth and takes another drink. I shoot a quick look at mother to make quite sure that this is not what she was going to say, but she looks unhappy and nervous.

_Oh. No. No._

"I wish it were so simple," she says, not looking at either of us.

Snape stands up, suddenly. "I'll collect my wand later," he says, striding to the door.

"Severus –"

But something has happened to Snape. He lurches towards the door and stumbles against the woodwork. He raises a hand to his eyes.

Mother gets to her feet, but does not go to him.

His hand falls from his eyes and he turns to look at her with the oddest expression. He tries to grasp the doorknob, and again, but it will not turn. He bangs the door with his fist, with fury, and turns back to her, staggering slightly. "You foolish woman," he almost spits, his face thunderous.

"Sit down," she whispers.

"What is it?" he hisses. "Veritaserum?"

She nods, slightly, moving to help him as he sways. His arm lashes out and she stumbles to the floor. I jump to my feet, grasping the nearest weapon, a knife.

"No, Draco!" she cries, getting to her feet as Snape sinks to his knees. "He doesn't know what he's doing. He's had a large dose. I had to give him a lot, because he's probably built up immunity to it. Give him time!"

_Snape, disorientated, without his wand._ I advance upon him around the table, but my mother stands between us, her expression pleading.

And I remember the night upon the Astronomy tower, when I had faced a powerless wizard, and not been able to do it.

But this is a man I hate. I hadn't quite hated Dumbledore, just despised his naivety.

The knife slides from my hand. I glance at the table: all the cutlery has disappeared. Mother has great control over her elves. I stare from her face to the weak, sweating man on the floor. I still have my fists and my feet, perhaps even my teeth. There are heavy objects in the room. I don't care that mother likes him or that dad doesn't care he is shagging her, or that the Dark Lord thinks he is the dog's bollocks.

Mother crouches beside him and moves a hank of hair to see his face. He murmurs something unintelligible. She glances up at me. "Help me, Draco. He can't stay on the floor."

Ultimately I must, because she is my mother. For a thin man, he is remarkably heavy. We heave him into the armchair in a corner near the French windows. He says nothing, other than a grunt, but I can feel the fury pouring off him. When mother and I stand back to look at him, he glares back at us with eyes like black fire.

What mother has done to him sinks in. I begin to laugh.

"Do grow up, Draco," she snaps. "This is serious."

"Don't do this," Snape whispers. Sweat shines on his face.

"I'm sorry," she says, gently.

"You might end up being a lot sorrier," he says through his teeth. "No good will come of this."

She looks very sad, I think. "I can't think of another way to save him, Severus."

"What are we going to ask him, then?" I ask, rubbing my hands together. "How about, has the Dark Lord ever shagged you up the arse, _Severus_?"

"No, he has not." Snape looks slightly baffled and sounds scornful. "For pity's sake, Draco, haven't you got anything better than that?"

"Tell me who your master is," orders my mother.

He clamps his jaw and shakes his head from side to side, but the words come tumbling out anyway. "Dumbledore."

I stare.

"Is the Dark Lord your master?" she whispers.

"No."

"Do you work against the Dark Lord from within his ranks?"

"Yes. Don't ask me any more!"

I simply stare.

_Snape, a spy?_

"But you killed Dumbledore," I say. "I was there. You killed him to save me from doing it, like you agreed with mother."

Mother looks surprised. Snape says, "I think Bellatrix told him." Mother purses her lips.

But I can't fathom why he killed his master. Mother asks for me before I can pull myself together to ask.

Snape says, in a voice thick with emotion, "Because he ordered it."

The scale of this … I find a seat and a glass of wine, not Snape's. Questions whirl in my head, but I can't separate them from each other.

Mother kneels at his feet and taken one of his limp hands in hers. He stares at her with naked grief and hopelessness.

I say, "You're on Potter's side, then?"

He laughs, thinly, as he says that he is.

"Why?"

"Because of Lily."

"Who is Lily?"

"Potter's mother."

"And why because of her?"

He struggles against the potion again, but it is futile. "She died because of my betrayal. Because I was a foolish, power-seeking, selfish bastard."

"And why should it matter to you if she lived or died?" mother asks, quietly.

"Because I loved her."

My mother squeezes his hand ever so slightly. "It makes sense," she whispers.

"Don't you dare pity me," he sneers, and pulls his hand away. She looks hurt.

"Don't you love my mother?" I blurt.

"Explain your notion of love to me," he says with narrowed eyes, "so I may be more precise."

"Of course he doesn't," Mother says, her cheeks aflame.

"The potion is wearing off," I warn.

"I assure you it is not."

"Do you intend to kill the Dark Lord?" I whisper.

"I intend to be there when he dies and assist all I can."

A thought occurs to me. It stings. "When Potter cast that curse … Sectumsempra … you saved me. Was that to save Potter from expulsion?"

He looks hard at me. "It was to save your life, you silly boy."

"What will you do when the potion wears off?"

He smiles, showing his teeth. "Throttle you, Draco. After I have beaten in your mother's head with a poker."

"Severus," she murmurs, frightened.

"Why do you think my mother has done this?"

He smiles again, broadly. "She wants to show you what a hero looks like," he replies. "Take a long look. Then look in the mirror, and ask yourself the question."

"What question?"

"_Am I a hero?_"

I take another drink, my mind whirling. There is another question. "My life," I murmur.

"Yes, the one I saved."

I meet his eyes. He looks like he will smile again, but does not. His eyes look bright and clearer, he is sitting straighter, but still sweating. He knows that I know: I owe him a Wizard's Debt.

"It's time for you to go now, Draco," Mother says. "To your room, please. Don't attempt to contact anyone just yet."

I am worried for her. She knows and still pleads with me with her eyes to leave. This time the door opens and I walk part way down the hallway before I stop and listen. I can hear nothing, then a ripping sound and the clatter of china and glass. I tiptoe back peer through the crack in the door.

I feel like an icy hand has gripped my guts. She's on her back on the table with her legs over his shoulders and he's standing between them. His violence rocks the table. Her beautiful dress is ripped. He's pinning her hands to the table and staring down into her face.

"I'm sorry," she says, with a small sob.

"I know," he replies, his voice cracking, and I think that he is crying too.

I don't understand, and I'm acutely aware of this now. I back away and tear up to my room, throwing myself on my bed. I feel ashamed. Angry. Betrayed. Cheated. I have wasted a lot of energy to beat him at his own game, when he wasn't even playing the game. I have hated him for being a double-agent, without realising that it wasn't to our favour.

_Our_ favour.

I never asked him about my father, whether or not dad knew he was a spy. But I already know the answer to this.

My mother is on the wrong side. I owe Snape a Debt.

I am lost.

In the absence of knowing what else to do, I begin to weep into my pillow.

_To be continued._

* * *

_Notes and Nods_

Thanks to Miranda Macondo for the beta :-)


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six: Mortal Fears**

It is only as the _little death_ gathers in the pit of my loins that I realise that what I am doing is wrong. Never mind that Narcissa led me there, helped me clear back the remains of the meal uneaten and lay back on the polished mahogany. She gazes up at me with such sorrow, such raw need. I cease to thrust, feeling my cock begin to shrink within her, ease my grip on her wrists. Her eyes spill more tears from their corners, her jaw tenses against the sounds she keeps within. I withdraw and help her to sit up, and tuck my quivering self away. She is shaking and she doesn't take her eyes off me. I put my arms around her and draw her to my chest. I feel sick from the potion – one of my own brewing, I think – but the scent of her hair is soothing.

"I thought you would hate me," she murmurs into the folds of my robes.

I say nothing. It is also a surprise to me that I do not, that actually I appreciate her courage, her stupid misplaced tenacity. I still can't imagine the damage she's done. I don't know how real a threat Draco's epiphany will be. I don't know if I will have to kill them both, yet. Nor do I know if I will be capable of it even if I must.

_She has changed me._

Dumbledore could not see how his death at my hands would affect me. He knew I was strong enough to do it at his bidding, but not how the fall-out would lead me into realms that were more dangerous for me. No man can be completely alone, left to carry as impossible a load as this. I feared this, and I told him so, and he refused to believe that I was not that strong.

I feel angry with him, suddenly. It is an uncomfortable emotion now, it never used to bother me to feel angry with him. I hold Narcissa a little closer and inhale her scent again. It shocks me how just to hold her close makes me feel invincible and vulnerable at the same time.

"I had no idea about Lily," she says. "Was the love reciprocated?"

She says it without the slightest hint of irony, and it makes my head spin a little to imagine that she believes that Lily could have loved me back. Carefully, I reply, "Lily thought I was … good."

Pause. "She wasn't wrong."

I step back and look at her. She will never be ugly with tears, they are like jewels against her skin. "The way I treat you isn't," I say in a small voice.

"Nor the way I let you," she replies, soberly.

"You deserve better."

"Don't you dare end this," she says, suddenly shrill.

"There is no future –"

"So what if we're all dead by the new year?" She grasps the front of my robes and shakes me. "Will death be any the easier because we're alone?"

"We're always alone when we die," I scorn, pushing her hands from me.

"Don't betray me too," she whispers.

It is a direct hit. She may as well have jammed her wand into each chamber of my heart.

"How can I possibly betray one I do not love," I snarl as if repulsed at her manipulation.

Her hands release me, she does not realise I am concealing uncertainty, so I am safe. Yet even as I walk through the door my regret washes through me like a winter tide. But I don't stop walking, and it is not regret but nausea, and I barely make it to my bathroom in time.

Eventually, I sense the cold of the white porcelain toilet bowl against my hands as I stare down into my vomit, and am comforted by the pain of my stomach as it roils against the truth potion. I _must_ think about what I told Draco. _Think! Think!_ I clean myself up and take a swig of Pepper-up. I glance at the clock as I leave. I have things to do before bed, and a busy day tomorrow. But if I don't see Draco now, there might not be a tomorrow for me.

His room looks empty, but a glance through to his bathroom reveals he is staring into his mirror. He hears me and shifts his gaze in the silvered glass.

"Come in, why don't you," he says, rudely.

I close the door.

"So," he drawls, walking through into the bedroom, "have you beaten in her head with a poker?"

"Not yet."

"Just poked her, then." His face is suddenly hard and furious.

"Spying at keyholes, Draco?" I enquire.

He flushes. I sit down on a small, uncomfortable chair. We look at each other. Draco sits on the edge of his bed. There is a long silence. His father has taught him well, not to try to fill silence with childish chatter. As my father taught me.

At length, he says, "I did what you said."

I raise my brow. "Which was?"

"Took a look in the mirror."

Well, well. I wait. Draco chews on his bottom lip and stares at the floor between us. He eventually says, in a small voice, "How can you do it? Because of Potter's mother? A mudblood? A _girl_?"

My heart sinks. "Some things are bigger than one's self, Draco. It began because of Lily. She opened a door into a different world, for me." I lean forward. "Your mother has just tried to do the same for you."

His quicksilver eyes flicker over me but he only continues to chew his lip.

"You have the opportunity to be a hero," I say.

"But doesn't that entail standing by my beliefs?" he throws at me, defiant.

I stare. He glares at me, flushed with confidence. I stand. "I hope for your sake you will reconsider," I say as I leave. He does not bother to reply.

I go straight down to my potions room in the cellar. One potion in particular will reach maturity tomorrow. I dig the scrap of paper containing Lily's hair from my pocket and lay it beside a cup on the stone shelf. My wards alert me to Narcissa's presence. She waits in the outer doorway, holding my wand. I go and take it from her. She has changed her clothes for ones not ripped and stained. The lilac dress had looked so pretty on her, too.

I force myself to remember that I am trying to extricate myself from her lover's grasp.

"I'll look after Draco's wand, " I say.

Her gaze is level. "And mine?"

She thinks I am going to murder them both, I can see it in the depths of her eyes. My guts ache with it. I turn and slam my fist into a cupboard door, splintering the cheap veneer and skinning my knuckles.

"Don't betray me," she says again.

When I turn back to her, she is gone.

ooOoo

It is the purest irony that my normally unappealing reflection is a stunning hybrid of two of the three women I have felt affection for in my life. My red hair is Lily, as is my mouth. The rest is Narcissa, and I have borrowed one of her robes for the occasion. The thing about using the hair of a Metamophmagus for a Polyjuice potion is that it is a potentially unstable mixture: one may not be entirely sure what the visual results might be. But I know that Narcissa's natural form is close to the one she lives in most of the time, so I have not used it recklessly.

The morning on the streets of London is warm and dusty. The press of shoppers around me is as uncomfortable as the mourners at the funeral, but I've never been one for crowds. It is unfortunate that I have been forced by convenience to use a hybrid identity that draws people's attention. This body is better to walk in than Umbridge's was, though, and I make my walk quickly to St Mungo's. I give my name as Miss Evans and I am sent up to the fourth floor, to the Janus Thickey ward, home to those with long-term spell damage.

I've been here before, of course, though as myself. And she's in the same bed as she has always been, two places down and on the opposite side to Alice Longbottom. As I walk down the aisle I can see she is out of bed, sitting in the armchair I had specially brought. Her hair has become wispy as it greys, and looks slightly unkempt. She is colouring in a picture of a kitten with a pink crayon.

I want to run.

I force myself up to her bedside and grip the foot rail for support. "Mrs Snape?" I ask, my charmed voice sounding perhaps a little too girlish, a little too _Umbridge_.

She ignores me. I try again: "Eileen?"

She stops colouring and glances up into my face. She opens her mouth, then hesitates and cocks her head to one side. "You?" The word is thick and spittle flies from her mouth.

"Miss Evans," I say, perching on the edge of the cot. "Rose."

"Here?" She peers at me, suspiciously. This is normal, the mother I know.

"I'm a friend of your son."

She arches a brow and mutters incomprehensibly. The only word I can understand is "He?"

I hope she hasn't heard the gossip, for there will have been gossip, even in this room where many cannot remember their names. I hope that no one has been callous enough to tell her to her face that her son is a murderer. This is not why I have come here.

Why have I come here? Ah, yes: to say goodbye. And not for this poor woman, whose sanity and independence I stole with a curse intended for my father, but for me: selfish to the end.

"He can't come, so I said I would," I say.

We converse, as well as we can with her babble and my habitual reticence. She thinks I am my girlfriend. She is glad I have found a nice girl. She holds my hand and smiles tearfully. Then she falls asleep. A passing medi-witch remarks that this is common. I take the colouring book from her lap and the crayon from her palm and set them neatly on the bedside table.

It comes to me again, the past. My father calling me a freak of nature. My mother crying and begging us to stop fighting. I remember taking aim, the curse on my lips. How her expression froze as she threw herself into my line of fire. How he left the next day and did not ever return.

She has not been coherent since.

My wand vibrates in my pocket and I take a discreet sip from a phial in my handkerchief. My eyes fall onto a huddle across the aisle: Longbottom is visiting his parents. He is completely oblivious to me. He sits beside his mother on the bed. They say nothing to one another. The father sits opposite, staring at the floor. I realise I must go, I am intruding, and they are another family ruined by my actions.

As I walk back down the aisle towards the doors, I think of the Malfoys. Narcissa is so certain that I can save her and her son. She doesn't know that I only have experience of complete and utter destruction of anything loving.

Until today: I remind myself again that our affair is over, she knows what I am by now. She is probably awaiting my return with some hope. But there is none. I know that today we shall all have to make difficult decisions. And live or die by them.

ooOoo

I return to the manor feeling that I have put a little more of what has to be dealt with in order. I cut through the rose gardens and bypass the topiary and watch gathering storm clouds over the roof of the house as I stride: typical English summer. The air is heavy and the first drops splatter around me as I enter the house via the garden room.

I am surprised by Draco, lying on a settee, reading a book. He is more startled; he stares in complete amazement, then looks me up and down, then utters a mewling, sneering sound that he quickly stifles. I am aware of how ridiculous I must look, and choose to ignore his reaction.

"What are you reading?" I ask.

He lifts the book from his lap so I can see the title: 'One hundred murders' by Erin Twitt. "I like the one where he was throttled by his own entrails," he says, quite solemnly.

"Messy and unnecessary," I remark.

"But satisfying," he replies.

"If you had the opportunity to murder me now," I ask, "could you?"

"Would I, you mean?" His eyes glitter in the gloom. "I don't have to, do I? I just have to tell someone who you are."

"That wasn't the question, Draco," I say as I turn towards the door.

"How long are you going to keep us here? You can't lock us up forever."

I cannot answer. I do not know.

I change into my own clothes. I stare at the crumple of Narcissa's robes on my bed and am lost for several moments in the memory of her. I miss her already, more so perhaps because I know she is within reach and yet I cannot touch her. I long for her. It's not right. I cannot afford to feel for her.

I sink onto the bed, touching the edge of her robe. I know that either Draco comes over to my side, or that I must somehow remove him from this situation, indefinitely. She once suggested Draught of Living Death; it would certainly be a better choice than killing them both. But that potion takes a month to prepare. Not knowing what else to do, I make my way down towards my work room. On the way, however, my wand begins to vibrate in my pocket: someone is attempting to break through my wards on the front gates of the manor.

Outside the sky is black and the rain is hurtling down. I deflect the rain from me with a simple spell and run down to the gates. The wind tangles my robes around my legs. I catch a glimpse of a gaggle of house elves chasing the colourful petals that have been blown off the rose bushes and into the air, and wonder if they intend to fix them back on.

As I near the gates I slow to a walk, panting, gravel crunching beneath my step. I can see no one through the wrought iron. The lane beyond looks deserted. I'm not actually expecting to see anyone – intrusions on unplottable and disguised residences are often by complete accident. _Perhaps it's Parkinson_.

A figure steps into the frame of the gateposts and I stifle a gasp of surprise, but keep my wand low. The wind and rain lash at his pale hair and his prison robes. He peers through the gates right at me, though I know he cannot see me.

My heart thuds in my chest as I raise my wand to draw down the wards I have created. As the gates appear to him, he smiles, and pushes the small side gate open and steps on to his own soil.

"Severus," he says, quite delighted to see me, and throws his arms around me.

"Lucius," I murmur, despondently, into his soaking wet shoulder, "welcome home."

_To be continued._

* * *

**NOTES AND NODS**

Thank you EVERYONE for your reviews and support. I read, re-read, and treasure all your reviews and emails.

Praise be to _Miranda Macondo_ for her patient and thorough beta, and for _Hraefn_ for her wondrous Snape and Narcissa artwork for 'Smoke and Mirrors'. Check out the pics at her gallery at http/hraefn. next chapter, alas, will be the last.

Adred x


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven: Reflected in the smoke**

_Lucius_.

I see his arrival from my window. Why am I not surprised? And, behind him, melting from the shadows, my sister Bella. From this distance she looks like Severus' twin, gaunt and angular. Between them, my drenched husband, equally thin. Why do they imagine that their way of life is the right way, when it makes them look so?

_Why has he let them in? Why can't he just leave the world locked out? _

I draw back from the window as they turn up the driveway. I shift my gaze to my transparent reflection in the glass. Will he see that I am altered? I have washed and changed but still I feel Severus is all over me. And inside me: he left something behind, other than semen and bruises, something indefinably … different.

I feel as if I could scour out my insides, Obliviate myself of these memories_. Be strong, be strong._

_Draco._

I find him in the garden room, where I know he has been for hours. He is staring at the pages of a book, eyes unseeing. He does not look up when I enter.

"Your father is here."

His heads snaps up. We stare at one another for a long and terrifying moment. I don't know how to read him. I don't know what he will do. There hasn't been the time for him to think, to learn, to grow.

I can feel my plans unravelling around me.

He jumps up, the book goes flying, and rushes towards me, to the door. I stop him with both hands on his shoulders. "I beg you –"

"I bet you do," he snarls, shaking me off.

I follow him at a run as he makes for the front doors. Before we get there, they are flung open and Lucius, Bella and Severus hasten inside with a flurry of raindrops.

The doors bang shut.

"Dad!" Draco squeals.

Lucius holds up his hand, his eyes upon me. Draco falls silent; I can feel his frustration from here and Bella's eyes are upon him, speculatively, too. Lucius, however, appears oblivious. He walks towards me, smiling slightly, arms spread in the gesture of a returning hero. I allow him to take my hands in his freezing, wet ones and press his cold lips to my cheek. Over his shoulder I meet Severus' eyes for a fleeting moment. His expression is inscrutable.

I remember I don't have my wand. Severus has his. Bella has hers. I don't know about Lucius.

Because it may come to this.

To what? I am no longer sure of what I will do. Protect Draco, yes; beyond this … I do not know.

Lucius walks through into the garden room, which is his favourite. Through habit, I go to pour him a drink. He takes it from my hand and grasps my wrist, pulls me to him, and pecks me on the lips. Then he summons Draco. He looks his son up and down. I can see Draco is almost bursting with his tales, but he will wait until he may speak.

Bella pours drinks for herself and Severus and asks me if I would like one. I would. Then she asks Draco. This annoys me, she knows I don't like him drinking, and Draco accepts, knowing this too.

An awkward party we make.

Severus casts a drying spell over the newcomers and Lucius slaps him on the arm. "Severus has told me about all about the night on the Astronomy tower," he says, looking at Draco, whose mouth tightens a little. "I've got to say, Draco, I admire it that you tried."

Our son looks surprised.

"Lucky that Severus stepped in, though. From what Bella tells me, we could all have been done for."

Lucius' face is suddenly hard and mean. I can imagine that Draco is feeling humiliation, and knows it will follow him to his grave: the man cuckolding his father was the man who saved his father's life.

I dare not look at him.

"I've told you, Lucius," Severus says, moving slowly around the room to lean with an arm on the over mantle, "the Dark Lord did not intend Draco to succeed."

"Don't try to defend me," Draco suddenly spits.

"I am merely stating facts," Severus says, arching an unconcerned brow and sipping his whisky, a master of himself where Draco is not.

My guts are like ice. I move to a settee and sink down.

"You feel the snapping teeth of failure, do you?" Lucius says, staring at our son. "Don't worry, our Lord will no doubt have other tasks for you." He smiles. "No doubt you're looking forward to them, eh, Draco? Muggles and Mudbloods to put down, wizards to execute. Perhaps even people you know from school. Are you up to it now?"

For the first time I see a flicker of unease in Draco's features, but at that moment there is a crash and splinter of glass: Severus has dropped an antique crystal tumbler and spilled whisky down himself.

I summon a house elf to clear up the mess whilst Lucius cracks jokes about potions burning away the feeling in Severus' fingertips, but Bella is looking at Severus with narrowed eyes, and I know that he has bought us a little time, that he is asking Draco to listen and think.

"Been keeping the home fires tended for me, Severus?" I hear Lucius say, and Draco visibly tenses.

"Run a hot bath for the master," I tell the elf.

"Your cellars make acceptable work rooms," Severus replies, calm, his long fingers curling around a fresh glass that he has poured himself, returning to his place by the fire. Lucius paces like a trapped beast, pausing to gaze out of windows, turning to stare at the three of us, a million thoughts and words flitting across his face, his eyes, unspoken.

"How did you escape?" Draco asks, plucking at his father's sleeve.

"It wasn't a case of escape." Lucius suddenly downs the fire whisky and tosses the glass to Bella, who catches it with lightening reflex and pours him another. Their synchronisation does not escape Draco. His face, which I know better than I know my own, is masked as, behind the façade, he thinks at speed.

Lucius continues, "The Dark Lord informs me I'm needed for some hard drive against the Muggle committee or whatever they call themselves." He accepts the drink from Bella. "Your aunt Bella came to tell me and, well, I practically walked out of there. Hopeless."

"The Dark Lord is trusting you with a mission?" I ask, my voice shaking.

His eyes meet mine but he closes them almost immediately under the cover of taking more Ogden's. "A chance to redeem myself. Eh, Severus?"

Severus does not reply.

"You'll find this, Draco," Lucius says, blithely. "He orders, you do it. You fail –" he draws his finger across his throat with a gagging sound. Draco is wide-eyed, but there is something else, something happening beneath his mask-like expression. Perhaps Lucius perceives it; he studies his son again with some curiosity, then says, abruptly: "I'll have that bath. Come and sit with me." When Bella stirs, he snaps, "Not you, for pity's sake. I mean Draco."

A chill remains when they have left the room. Bella is glowering into the fireplace: no doubt she had plans of her own for my husband's welcome home, presumptuous that she is. Severus broods into the fireplace also, but he feels me look at him and his gaze flickers over me. I can almost hear his voice in my head, telling me to be calm, be still, and he is right: we can only wait.

"So," says Bella, in her annoying sickly-sweet taunt, crossing her legs, perched on the arm of one of my settees, "How have you two been amusing yourselves, with _your_ husband away and _you_ not safe to leave? Hmm?"

Severus gives a lascivious smirk, and sips his whisky, not even bothering to meet her gaze. Oh, he knows how to play this game.

"Perhaps you'd like a bath too, Bella," I say. "The elves are making your room ready –"

"Want me out of the way, _Cissy_?" she snipes. This time Severus raises his head and meets her coal-black gaze with his own. Something dark and sexual passes between them, and my pang of jealousy was worth the one mirrored in my sister's eyes. She bares her teeth at him with a smile, they glint in the pale light.

His lips twist, amused. I hate that I am fascinated by him, and that my sister is too. She always wants my men, and often she gets them. I wonder how long it will be before she gets Severus. I think I would like to disfigure her, rake my nails down her pale cheeks, her breasts. Not that she is much to look at anyway, and somehow I don't think looks bother Severus much.

"I think I will have that bath," she says. "Maybe I'll look in on father and son."

Severus and I look at each other as the door closes. He raises a long finger to his lips to silence me, and softly crosses the carpet to where I am standing stock still, as if I had been hexed. He looks down at me, hesitantly, then lays a hand on my shoulder; to my surprise, it is warm. Suddenly, we are in an intimate space, our thoughts colliding and merging and buffeting each other: _what if … I know … we can … I have … he won't … believe … trust … good … _

"Don't betray me," I whisper.

He does not answer, but his nostrils flare.

"You loved her, and she's dead," I say. "I don't want that to happen to me and Draco. I want to live. I want to trust you."

His fingers tighten on my shoulder, then his hand falls. "Nothing is certain," he says, quietly, sadly, his expression pinched.

_I am certain of you_!

He squeezes his eyes shut. "_Don't_ …"

_I believe! _I am standing closer now.

_I know._ A tear is crushed free from beneath his lashes. He destroys it with a quick, desperate gesture. His black gaze is glassy and angry. "It is now out of my hands," he corrects me. "We have done what we can. Draco will have to decide. If he chooses well, I will do everything I can that is in my power to help you, Narcissa." He pauses, and adds, "You have my word, which is worth more than any magical vow."

My heart leaps, relieved.

But he continues: "Should Draco choose ill, you know that I have more to protect than your lives." His thumb lightly traces the line of my bottom lip. "And I will."

_There must be another way!_

He looks down at me, his eyes unfathomable. I see an image in my mind's eye of his fingers closing around my throat. He shakes his head. He turns from me and goes to sit in a chair by the window, taking up a book that Draco has discarded. He snorts and lays it down again, and gazes out across the sodden, rain-lashed landscape.

"I have made a potion," he murmurs, and meets my eyes for an instant, then gazes away again.

_The Draught of Living Death!_

_Or another, more deadly?_

I sink onto a settee, my thoughts in turmoil, my hands, which are clasped on my lap, shaking. He stares into the dark soot in the fireplace, his hands reposing on the arms of the chair where he is seated. I know what he means, he does not need to say it: our fate is in Draco's hands.

Thus in silence, we wait.

It is not so long before we hear footsteps tread softly and quickly along the hall. The front door opens and closes. I rise and look out of the window: it is Draco, head bent against the rain, striding out across the driveway, then veering off into the trees.

Severus, at my shoulder, says, "I will go after him."

"No," I say, "I will."

I do not look at him: I rush from the room, and I am relieved that I do not hear him follow.

… _long fingers pressing the white skin at Draco's throat_ _…_

The cold rain casts a grey veil across the landscape. As I pass, I see that the rose garden is ruined. There is an elf sitting alone, drenched, in a muddy flowerbed, head bowed and shoulders shaking. I slip through the trees, taking the path I know leads to the ruined summerhouse. I think I know that this is where Draco will be, but he is not and I fear, with rising anxiety, I have lost him. Everything drips and rustles under the weight of the falling water. I lean back against the trunk of a tree and wipe my hands across my face. _Think, Narcissa! _

Then I sense something, and look up. My son sits in the tree above me, his hair plastered to his scalp, his clothes stuck to his body. The expression on his face is closed to me. He watches like a cat wary of a stranger.

"Please come down and talk to me," I say.

He chews his lip. Then his features screw and he begins to cry. He puts a hand up to hide his face. Rivulets of watery blood slide over his skin; he has perhaps cut himself climbing. His shoulders shake. He momentarily masters himself, then it begins again. He looks as he did when he was young, a little like when he was toddling and hurt himself, or had been told off and was having a tantrum. Hard lessons make us cry: not to run or we will fall, not to break things or we will be chastised, not to love or we will have our hearts broken, not to show fear or we will be persecuted.

But I don't know what he is learning, what these tears mean. Perhaps they are the tears of a boy who realises his father will not lift a hand to save him, though another man has? Tears that speak of the betrayal of the highest order, of a child's love spurned, of a child's needs, ignored.

The fear of these, and more, roils in my guts. Again, Draco masters control of himself, and slowly lowers his hand, but does not meet my eyes. Blood smears his cheek.

"Have you told him," I whisper.

His bottom lip is protruding, stubbornly, hurt. Eventually, he says, "Told him what?"

I lick the rain from my lips. "Severus' secret."

His eyes snap to mine, and I realise I have hurt him with my question, that he thinks another should have come first. If he realises that in his answer lies our future, it is of less importance to him. "No."

_Oh, thank Merlin!_ "What prevented you?"

He chews his lip again. "He's screwing Bella."

I watch him.

"I don't just mean, now, right at this minute," he continues, "just, you know, they have a thing, an … affair."

There is a long silence, in the midst of the rainfall.

"I didn't think you were telling the truth," he adds, more gravely. Suddenly he turns and slides down the slippery bark. He is soaked and covered in streaks of algae and moss. He holds out his left hand, palm up, and I see that it has been scored through both life and heart lines to the tender skin at his wrist. It is more than superficial, a clean, deliberate incision.

"Dad did it with his razor," he says, matter-of-fact. "At least when Potter injured me, he had the decency to use magic." His face crumples again. This time I gently fold him into my arms. He resists, but his violent sobs bruise my shoulder.

"Why?" I ask.

"Because he wants me to be something I'm not," my son sobs. "I'm scared, mum, I'm weak, I don't want to die!" He pulls back. His eyes are wide. "I don't want to kill! Dad is right – that's why I couldn't kill D-Dumbledore, or Snape, because I don't have the killer instinct! I can't be like him!"

I wipe the blood from his cheek with my thumb. "That is not necessarily a bad thing, Draco," I say, weeping a little.

"I know." He shudders with sobs again. I need a handkerchief, I dip into his pockets. My fingertip touches something small and hard. I withdraw it. It is a green gem. It tingles against the skin of my palm. We stare at it.

"Where did you find this?" I breathe. I recognise it, and the piece from whence it came.

"What is it?" he asks.

_Possibly, our salvation._

I tip it over and think quickly for a moment. Then slip it back into his pocket. My eyes meet his. His eyes are clear and pure. He is my boy, my son, forever a part of me, and I adore him. As I consider these feelings, my chest tightens, my abandoned womb remembering the love, reminding me.

"Mother," he murmurs, uncomfortable under my scrutiny.

"We have a plan," I say, quickly. "Severus has made a potion, Draught of Living Death. We can lie in the family crypt until this is all over. No-one will bother us, and Severus will ensure that we are revived."

Draco looks fearful, and sceptical. "What if he dies?"

"But there is another plan," I whisper, touching his pocket with the green gem in it. "One which we can conceal, even from Severus."

"I thought you liked him," my son remarks.

I do not respond immediately. My feelings are too complex for me just now. Certainly I cannot explain any of them to Draco without scarring him further.

"I trust him," I simply say.

"I hate him," Draco snarls, sulkily, turning away and kicking up the long sodden blades of grass.

"Draco."

He hears the danger in my voice and meets my eyes again.

"You realise – " I break off to clear my throat. "You realise that if you tell your father about Severus, it is the end for us all. You might not like Severus, or Mudbloods, or the Ministry, or Harry Potter, but if you value our lives and you want us to be happy once again, you must play this my way."

He looks at me for a long time and I start to believe that he does not trust me. In a startling moment, I see myself reflected in his eyes: just his mother, who fusses after him and wants him to remain a child; a whore, mistress of an ugly half-blood traitor, his teacher; a beautiful woman, perhaps, who has seen her life become ugly and her ambitions thwarted by those of others. I feel small. His attitude begins to annoy me: does he not realise how much I have sacrificed?

"You must play this my way," I repeat.

He nods, slightly, sharply. "But I don't want to take the potion," he says.

"Then we won't," I assure him.

His hand passes over the pocket containing the green gem. The rain is running in rivulets down our faces. I can't imagine what I must look like.

"Come back to the house," I say.

He shakes his head. "I'll stay out here a while, Mother."

And I know I must let him. This is a tenuous agreement, and I want to go back and set Severus' mind at rest.

I find him where I left him. He is staring out of the small side window that looks onto the now ruined rose garden. He looks expectant, composed, his steely resolve as evident as ever. I close the door and cross the room to where he is, preparing my mind for his intrusion, the image of Draco's affirmation that he had not told his father, and would not, at the fore of my mind.

_He must believe me … he must!_

ooO** The End of Smoke and Mirrors **Ooo

**This Snape/Narcissa series to be continued!**

Others in the series:

Party Night (Chapters: 1)

Sins of the Mother (Chapters: 3)

* * *

**Dedication:** To all who have been reviewing and urging me on, thank you, especially to Thirteen Ravens who has been so persistent and insistent a friend and beta.

Also, I feel I must in some way dedicate this to the comedian and actor Peter Kay. Sitting in the TV station canteen, I was, scribbling away at the plot for this story last year, and I kept glancing up for inspiration, and there the poor man was, in my line of sight; and it seemed, for months after that, that everywhere he was I was. If you ever read this, Peter, I don't fancy you, I was imagining Severus Snape and Narcissa Malfoy shagging in every imaginable position, not the two of us. I just had to clear that up, and I'm sorry if you thought I was stalking you ;-)

Adred x


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